The best thing about the activity of running is that it can be done by almost everybody. Runners are young and old, tall and short, thin and fat, fast and slow, and tell altered facts and stories like most of the population. I have a poster on my wall that reads, “If you think fisherman are the biggest liars, just ask a runner how far he runs each day.” There are runners that will tell you, “I ran 1,045 miles last year.” I am not sure how they measured these miles. Some drive the course in a car after the run to see how many miles the run was. I have certified courses on a calibrated bike after the race organizer has measured the course in their car and found that their measurement was over a quarter of a mile short. The path that a runner takes and the path that a car drives on the road may vary by quite a distance. My truck measures distance down to a tenth of a mile and I have a friend that has a truck that is really accurate. We will be on a run and he will point to a bush or some landmark and say, “I measured that landmark and it is 5.415 miles from my house.” That is one remarkable odometer he has in his truck.
The other thing that runners relate to is the time that they run. With stop watches attached to the wrist it is easy to time the length of the run down to hundredths of a second. Some runners are very obsessed with the amount of time they run. I was on a run one day with a friend who stepped on a rock and severely sprained his ankle. I know for a fact that his watch was stopped before the scream of pain left his mouth. One other friend in that category tripped on a wire coat hanger that was in the road and fell to the ground. His watch was stopped before he hit the ground and checked for injuries.
Another feature about runners is how they tell friends how fast they run. I am too blame for this on occasion. I ran a 3:03:54 time in a marathon. Now, I can tell friends that I ran a marathon in, “Just under three hours and four minutes.” This is a true statement. But the only thing my friends will remember is that I ran a 3:04 marathon. I could leave the seconds off in my time and tell them I ran a 3:03 marathon and that sounds much faster. I debate at times as to what I tell friends what my time in a marathon is. I have known runners to leave as much as five minutes off of a race time.
